Mangalore, June 28:The five managers, Umesh Banjan,Narayan Shenoy,Gokuldan Shenoy,Jagannath and Lokesh,who have survived in Uttarkhanda’s natural disaster and who are from city’s Nirmala travels along with 55 other tourists have reached to Mangalore junction on June 28,Friday after battling in the flood for nine days.
After reaching, they have shared their harrowing experiences of Uttarkhanda’s natural calamities with media people.
Narayan Shenoy, tour Manager said that they had visited to Kedarnath temple. For the time being they were staying in a small village which is 3 km from Gaurikund, an important Hindu pilgrimage.
“For the first time in my life I understood the true value of life and food. The first flood began on June 16 at around 7.30 am. Rain was continuously pouring till June 18 afternoon and it made us to scatter from one place to another. We assembled together later, but one of our kitchen staff Ravi Kumar from Bangalore is still missing,” he said.
“Our first preference was to take tourists to a safe place and also provide them food. But the food stock was empty. So we went to nearby villages in search of food. We got small amount of grocery stores and distributed to our members,” Narayan added.
“Thousands of people suffering from hungry and they were begging for the food from others. But they did not take money even if we offered”, he remembered.
Lauding the military personnel for their excellent rescue operations, the tour managers said, “All the people got food to eat only after military personnel were called for rescue operations.”
The survivors saw more than two dozen buildings collapsing around them, and hundreds of people dying due to starvation.
Shenoy said that as we walked through the rubble we saw dead people lying all around. A lodge, Annapoorna hotel that was provided for us was over filled with 120 people sharing 4 rooms.
He praised the government for their concern towards the people hit by the calamity and said that he never expected the government to react so swiftly with vehicles and food and accommodation being taken care of to the best of their capabilities. The government also assured that the return tickets for all were issued as fast as possible.
“We had 55 members travelled to Kedarnath. 22 were from Channapatna and five from Belgaum, nine from Dharmavaram, two from BC road and the rest from Bangalore city limits”, he said.
The survivors expressed deep gratitude to the authorities who helped them back home safe.
